Issue #136 - This Week's Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in... Asia Pacific!
Hot takeaways from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Maldives, Vietnam and more.
Welcome to issue 136 of Asia Travel Re:Set.
Firstly, thoughts and well wishes go out to everyone impacted by this week’s earthquake in eastern Taiwan, and to the rescue teams working around the clock.
Secondly, an update on last week’s segment about Thailand’s Marriage Equality bill passing in the House of Representatives. This week, it passed on 1st reading in the Senate. A set of procedural stages now follows. It could become law later in 2024.
Thanks for checking-in.
- “IN THE NEWS”
- This Week's Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in Asia Pacific!
Hot takeaways from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Maldives, Vietnam and more.
- Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in South East Asia in March
Key developments from Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Philippines and more.
“IN THE NEWS”
How "global" are "global travel trends"? This is an intriguing theme that Hannah Pearson (my sparring partner on The South East Asia Travel Show), Roshan Kanesan and I debated on Malaysia's BFM Business radio station. We assessed the 4 key findings of the 2024 AMEX Global Travel Trends report and their relevance for South East Asian travellers and destinations. Fascinating discussion. Click HERE to listen.
This Week’s Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in Asia Pacific!
Let’s start in Vietnam, which became the first South East Asian nation to report quarterly visitor arrivals surpassing the same 2019 period. In Q1 2024, Vietnam welcomed 4.6 million visitors - up 3.6% on the equivalent 2019 quarter. The highly competitive nature of regional tourism, however, saw local media lament that this figure is less than half of the 9.4 million Q1 visitors recorded by Thailand. [VNExpress]
Could Indonesia be the first South East Asian country to host an Olympic Games? This week, the nation’s Olympic committee chair confirmed Indonesia intends to prepare a bid, “likely in 2036.” It’s unclear whether a bid would centre on the current capital, Jakarta, or (more likely) the under-construction new capital, Nusantara. In 2022, outgoing president Joko Widodo trailed a possible Olympic bid for Nusantara. [Antara]
A high-speed railway is the new Taylor Swift concert in South East Asia. Every government wants one. The latest blueprint is a Trans-Borneo High-Speed Railway, proposed by Brunei-based Brunergy. The 2-phase bullet train-line would connect Brunei and Nusantara, the new capital of Indonesia, plus Kuching and Kota Kinabalu, the capitals of Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak states. The scale of the USD70 billion proposal is immense. Borneo is the world’s 3rd-largest island. But, Brunei’s government says “there have been no official discussions” regarding the project, and Brunergy’s website is under maintenance. [Borneo Bulletin]
Meanwhile, Japan - which launched the world’s first high-speed railway in 1964 - has postponed plans for an ultra-fast Tokyo-Nagoya maglev line. Trains operating at up to 500kph were slated to depart in 2027, but the earliest will now be 2034. The project has evoked widespread controversy regarding environmental issues. [The Mainichi]
Source: Maldives Ministry of Tourism
Last week, I noted that China had returned to being the #1 inbound market for Thailand. Maldives is another destination that Chinese tourists are re-staking as a holiday hangout. In Q1, China edged Russia as the top visitor market in a list dominated (unsurprisingly given the seasonality factor) by Europe and North America. 21.4% of visitors to Maldives from January-March were either Chinese or Russian. [Maldives Ministry of Tourism]
Next to the Philippines, which recorded “a net trade surplus of US$2.45 billion in travel services last year, a first in 15 years.” International visitors to the Philippines spent more in 2023 than Filipino travellers spent overseas for the first time since 2007. Inbound travel receipts in 2023 reached 93.2% of the 2019 total. [Philippine News Agency]
A terrific graphic by Tourism Research Australia (courtesy of Samantha Palmer) showing the immense value of international education in 2023. Students in Australia contributed AUD47billion of a total of AUD65 billion of international visitor spend last year. This vital sector for the visitor economy has bounced back impressively after those Fortress Australia years of Covid isolation. [AusTrade]
And finally…. An Air Canada plane touched down at Singapore Changi Airport for the first time in 33 years. Four weekly Vancouver-Singapore flights began this week after Canada’s national carrier exited the city state in 1991. The 13,000km trip is now its longest non-stop flight. Singapore Airlines stopped flying the route last September. [The Straits Times]
Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in South East Asia in March
The first quarter of 2024 is completed. So where is South East Asia at 2 years since the region reopened after the pandemic? This week’s The South East Asia Travel Show discusses March’s Top 8 talking points, including legislative shifts for Marriage Equality and Casino Gaming in Thailand, Singapore's World’s Best MICE City campaign and Vietnam's Q1 arrivals surpassing the same 2019 period.
Plus, illegal resort development in a protected area of the Philippines, the launch of AirAsia Cambodia and Bali's Tourism Tax leakages.
And, will China be 2024’s hottest destination for South East Asian travellers?
Listen to ‘The Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in South East Asia in March’, here:
Or search for The South East Asia Travel Show on any podcast platform
And, that’s a wrap for Issue 136.
The Asia Travel Re:Set newsletter will return next Sunday.
Until then, find me at LinkedIn and The South East Asia Travel Show
Happy travels,
Gary